Iraq inquiry: war ‘not legitimate’ says Sir Jeremy Greenstock

Britain's ambassador to the UN at the time of the Iraq war, Sir Jeremy
Greenstock, says the invasion in March 2003 was of "questionable
legitimacy".

1:56PM GMT 27 Nov 2009

Sir Jeremy said that not “legitimate” because Britain and the US failed to win international support for the 2003 invasion.

“If you’ve got broad opinion behind you, you are doing something that is defensible in a democratic environment… If you do something internationally that the majority of UN states think is wrong, or illegitimate or politically unjustifiable, you are taking a risk in my view.

"I regard our participation in the military action in Iraq in March 2003 as legal but of questionable legitimacy in that it did not have the democratically observable backing of the great majority of member states, or even perhaps of the majority of people inside the UK.”